dickytim: So did the OP open the laptop up? I have only ever had good experiences dealing with Acer on warranty issues and resolution.

If they believe something the user did caused the fault then they are will within their rights to refuse warranty, and PB Tech would be silly to honour the warranty only to have it refused to them by Acer.

Thats what I am a bit confused about too. Who actually opened it up, as I would have thought that acer would be pretty good about seals. If acer serviced it, I would expect they would have replaced the seal with a new one. I can't really see the lodgic of the cusomter opening it up, as it is a new computer still under warranty, so why would they even try to attempt to fix it themselves by opening it up, when it is covered for free under the warranty.

rickdias099: In regards to data lose, what I meant was the risk of losing data due to the known faults of this laptop. I understand its the user's responsibility to backup the SAVED data. However, if I give you a laptop and you experienced at least 3 issues where you did not even have a chance to save your data, would you keep trying so as to establish enough hardware faults to justify for a credit approval.

I also have to emphasis, the faults were not developed over time but within a month. I kind of make sense if it happens over a year or 2 , but 1 month? Come on....

No i think you are missing the point. If your data is important, anything you want to keep should be kept in a backed up state. If you can afford to lose a weeks data, ok to backup weekly, if you can lose a day, backup daily, if you can't lose any, backup continuously.

You are confusing the faults with the backups, and they are not directly linked

This ultra book has a solid state HDD but the problem is the fault actually cut off the power (harddisk fault), or suspend the system immediately (Blue screen). Even if I backup continuously, the file will not be backup if it cut off before I click save or auto save kicks in.

The fault actually links to my backup if you imagine someone unplug your hdd while I am typing this and none or majority of the text will not be saved , right?

Anyway, I am just trying to say this laptop certainly does not function for its purpose properly.

I hope you get it sorted. PB Tech are the ones that should be sorting it, it is not your problem if Acer wont repair the computer, it's theirs. The contract is between you and PB Tech, not you and Acer. PB Tech will have to wear the replacement/refund/repair (though I think you'd be well within your rights to reject the laptop).

Let us know the resolution once it gets to the Disputes Tribunal. I'm sure PB won't want it going that far.

trig42: I hope you get it sorted. PB Tech are the ones that should be sorting it, it is not your problem if Acer wont repair the computer, it's theirs. The contract is between you and PB Tech, not you and Acer. PB Tech will have to wear the replacement/refund/repair (though I think you'd be well within your rights to reject the laptop).

Let us know the resolution once it gets to the Disputes Tribunal. I'm sure PB won't want it going that far.

yeah I hope thats the case. However, I have the feeling that they will wait until the last day of the court hearing before they will offer me anything or get it sorted.

trig42: I hope you get it sorted. PB Tech are the ones that should be sorting it, it is not your problem if Acer wont repair the computer, it's theirs. The contract is between you and PB Tech, not you and Acer. PB Tech will have to wear the replacement/refund/repair (though I think you'd be well within your rights to reject the laptop).

Let us know the resolution once it gets to the Disputes Tribunal. I'm sure PB won't want it going that far.

yeah I hope thats the case. However, I have the feeling that they will wait until the last day of the court hearing before they will offer me anything or get it sorted.

I am sure I will post the outcome here shortly, once its sorted.

Thanks

You're permitted to hit Acer up on this one if you decide (that's allowable under the CGA).

You might get a more favourable result, especially since it seems the problem should've been covered by the manufacturer's warranty in the first place.

The disputes tribunal should award you a civil debt. Once you have that, I think you can commence proceedings for other things (Order of Examination, then Distress Warrant etc). Conversely, I think you can pay a (decent) debt collection outfit to do that extra work.

I think what they have been trying to do is to talk me out of the idea of refund and they have been asking me to take the "repaired" laptop back to try again. I think most of the buyer would have done it to avoid the trouble.

and in end of most of my emails, I always tell them I would accept store credit then at least they still have a business with me. Otherwise if we end up in court and I would be asking for cash . They will have lost the business, cash, time and reputation. And again I am pretty confident I will win in the court anyway.

However, I did lost the 3 months of time of using a laptop I have paid for. It really sucks

DaveDog: You've been pretty tolerant I think - I wonder if you were obliged to accept a store credit, or if you would have been within your rights to take your money and run...

You're entitled by law to a refund, not store credit. So if the issue were pressed, they would be legally required to fork over some cash.

That said, I do not understand why they did not accept the earlier offer to buy a different laptop - more expensive even! - and pay the difference. I know one time when I went back to DSE back when DSL was new to return a PCI DSL card, and one store person said no until the manager raced up and said something along the lines of "he's returning it to buy something more expensive, just process the refund". I can't imagine what goes through PB's mind that they miss that point.

When I was doing RAs Acer was number 1 in the high fail rate. In particular the ECS motherboards.

As for PB Tech when they first opened, their one store in Ellerslie, I made the mistake of buying a PC from them. Way back when...they gave me a 66mhz CPU, so they said. In fact it was 40mhz.I had a long ongoing argument with them about it, they wouldn't change it as they would have had to change the MB.

In the end I went to Disputes, he lost his English then, Disputes told him he could not take a lawyer and he finally replaced the CPU (and MB).

I had 2 other dealings with them, one recently - on behalf of customers of mine.

In each case they were a massive pain to deal with and you almost always had to resort to Disputes.Avoid.